Lily returned to her relations in Kansas, before she would be heading home. Well it was mostly Martha; her husband had gone into town to pick some things up.

"So how are things between you and James?" Martha asked in a conversational voice. She stood, around Lily's age, a year older than her, with the same shade of red hair although her eyes were blue as opposed to Lily's vibrant green orbs.

"Things are going fine between me and James," Lily responded, although she did hope to curb some of her husband's more immature behavior. He tended to act like he was still in Hogwarts and that was not the type of life she wanted to be with for long. "How about you and Jonathan?"

Martha paused and pondered before she responded to her. "We're doing as well as one could expect given the circumstances. They say the first year of marriage is always the hardest."

Lily could tell that Martha was not telling her the full extent of her issues.

As it turned out, Martha did not have any problems with her husband, a man ten years her senior, although there were many things about the life she married into that was challenging. Her father did not approve that much of the marriage and given that him and Jonathan had some very hostile words, that was not surprising at all.

There were the money issues, the bad year of crops, and the fact that they were behind on bills, all of them presented certain challenges but Martha hoped to weather the storm. She breathed in.

"So, is your husband around?" Lily asked as she watched Martha.

"No, he's not," Martha responded, trying to keep herself optimistic. Jonathan always did many farm chores late into the night when most people were in bed and got up to begin when he got out of bed. There was nothing to worry about, at least not yet.

Martha looked in the mirror, hoping this farm life was not going to age her. Although if she or Lily were anything like their grandmother, they would look fairly attractive and young, half their age for a very long time, even if Lily would always have that help.

"The war is getting bad over there, I take it," Martha responded as she watched Lily.

"Bad, a new disappearance every other day," Lily responded in a fretful voice, closing her eyes to really think about the situation. "It's almost enough to make you...I don't know."

She would have liked to get away from there.

"You could have gotten away from there if you wanted to," Martha responded but she shook her head.

"James wouldn't think of it, it wouldn't be the Gryffindor thing to do," Lily told her cousin and Martha turned around.

'Perhaps not, but it might be the smart thing to do,' Martha thought but she sat around, drinking coffee with Lily, as the night grew on.

Lily thought about the cave and what happened but decided not to bring it up to Martha. If there were any ramifications, she could deal with it.

"So no luck on the children front?" Lily asked as she watched Martha.

"No, not for any lack of trying," Martha responded, although her options with Jonathan tended to be rather limited due to the fact that he came from a traditional family. Bless the man but his sexual imagination tended to be one that was very narrow. "You?"

"The curse had more damaging side effects than I thought," Lily responded, sighing.

"Well it's not like the answer to my problem is going to drop from the sky," Martha responded in a half joking manner, although it would be nice.

The night grew long with them.

This would be the last time Lily would see Martha, at least for the foreseeable future, as a new Ministry regulation prevented travel for magicals outside the country. All that did was box them in with Voldemort where he could have his way with them